Wednesday, February 7, 2018

It’s time for another group posting of the IWSG: Insecure Writer’s Support Group! Time to release our fears to the world – or offer encouragement to those who are feeling neurotic. If you’d like to join, click on the tab above and sign up. Post the first Wednesday of every month and visit at least a dozen new blogs and leave a comment. Your words might be the encouragement someone needs.

Every month, a question is offered that members can answer in their IWSG Day post. These questions may prompt you to share advice, insight, a personal experience or story. Include your answer to the question in your IWSG post or let it inspire your post if you are struggling with something to say. Remember, the question is optional.

February 7 question - What do you love about the genre you write in most often?

What I Love About Writing Suspense Thrillers

The need to overcome hardships drives the themes in my suspense novels. I believe life throws obstacles at you for specific reasons that aren't meant to be clear at the time. Writing stories centred around certain fears drives me to weaken their influences in my life.

Most of the people who know me are perplexed by my dark plots. By nature I'm a happy-go-lucky person who is quick to smile. I look for the good in everything, sometimes foolishly. Not because I'm naive, but because I've learned that if things aren't going well, it's better to fake it and pretend they are.

In 2017 I faced struggle after struggle, and for the first time in my life I couldn't bounce back. So, for an entire year, I faked it. Situations don't change on a certain date, yet, sometimes, in order to survive, we set time limits. Such is the reason so many of us were happy to see 2017 end. A New Year meant hope.

I'm pleased to say 2018 has started off well. I'm not free of pain, but each morning I wake feeling blessed. And while this year may or may not be perfect, I'll continue to write suspense thrillers about characters facing tragedy, overcoming fears, and finding hope in the end.

Please, no matter how bad your life is, never give up believing it'll be better tomorrow. Show the universe you believe in your right to be happy. And if the day throws you a curve ball -- swing hard!

Monday, January 22, 2018

Today it's my great pleasure to introduce Hank Quense's latest novel QUEEN MOXIE. Hank has been a guest host on this blog many times, so I hope you're aware of his ticklish humour. Hank's stories make me laugh, and as far as I'm concerned, there's not enough laughter in the world. We need writers like Hank.

Please check out his book and his blog, and know that you will be treated to a delightful and crazy take on all sorts of life's adventures. Be sure to enter the raffle for a free copy.

Come
join in the fun and enter to win one of the wonderful prizes being given away
by Hank Quense.

File Size: 4861 KB

Print Length: 85 pages

Publisher: Strange Worlds
Publishing (February 1, 2018)

Publication Date: February 1,
2018

Sold by: Amazon
Digital Services LLC

Language: English

ASIN: B0775W1NWP

In this humorous
tale, it is now ten years since Moxie became Queen of Usca in south-west
Britain. A tribe of Picts shatters her peaceful reign by migrating from the
north and occupying territory just outside her border.

Moxie decides to
build a fort to help control the wild Picts. To her surprise, she discovers
that the fort has been built on land claimed by the forest fairies. Oberon, the
King of the fairies, destroys the fort using magic.

Moxie threatens
Oberon with military might. Oberon threatens Moxie with magic. To counter
Oberon, Moxie asks Camelot to send Merlin to help her out and Arthur agrees.

Once Merlin arrives,
Moxie demands that he confront Oberon and use magic spells to defeat the Fairy
King. Merlin isn’t thrilled by the request. Moxie wants him to cast field magic
spells, a type of spell casting that Merlin has never been able to master.

The Picts hear about
the fort and decide Moxie has become hostile. They determine to attack rather
than wait for Moxie to attack them.

Meanwhile, Moxie’s
only child, the ten-year-old daughter, Aethelwine, decides she won’t be the
next queen, leaving Moxie without an heir.

Tristan, a Knight of
the Round Table, has been exiled by Arthur for insulting all the nobles with
his songs and is staying in Moxie’s castle. He is working on a play to be staged
in Stonehenge. Tristan hopes the play will end his exile since it praises King
Arthur and Camelot

Faced with threats
from the fairies and the Picts, Moxie decides to take on the fairies. Merlin
tells Moxie and Oberon they are both idiots for fighting each other when the
real threat comes from the Picts who will be able to conquer both after they
fight a battle and are weakened by casualties.

Moxie and Oberon
agree to a treaty and combine forces to confront the Picts who have been
reinforced by boatloads of warriors.

Can Moxie and Oberon convince the Picts to back down?
And what about Aethelwine?
Is Tristan’s play any good?

For
those who aren’t familiar with Hank, here’s some background:

Hank Quense writes humorous and satiric sci-fi and fantasy
stories. He
also writes and lectures about fiction writing and self-publishing. He has
published 19 books and 50 short stories along with dozens of articles.

He
often lectures on fiction writing and publishing and has a series of guides
covering the basics on each subject. He is currently working on a third Moxie
novel that takes place in the Camelot era.

He
and his wife, Pat, usually vacation in another galaxy or parallel universe.
They also time travel occasionally when Hank is searching for new story ideas.

The
giveaway will consist of 5 eBook copies of QUEEN MOXIE, 3 eBook
copies of PRINCESS MOXIE, and a 2-book boxed set of the previous MOXIE
novels in eBook format. Click on the Rafflecopter widget below to enter or click here.

Thanks
for stopping by during Hank’s visit. Would you want to be the next heir to a
kingdom?

Wednesday, January 3, 2018

It’s time for another group posting of the IWSG: Insecure Writer’s Support Group! Time to release our fears to the world – or offer encouragement to those who are feeling neurotic. If you’d like to join us, click on the tab above and sign up. We post the first Wednesday of every month and encourage everyone to visit at least a dozen new blogs and leave a comment. Your words might be the encouragement someone needs.

Every month, a question is offered that members can answer in their IWSG Day post. These questions may prompt you to share advice, insight, a personal experience or story. Include your answer to the question in your IWSG post or let it inspire your post if you are struggling with something to say. Remember, the question is optional.

January 3 question - What steps have you taken or plan to take to put a schedule in place for your writing and publishing?

Can you believe it's 2018! Seems surreal for some reason. I almost didn't post today because I couldn't think of anything to say. Feels as if I've been invited to a party and I've just arrived at the front gate. I've no idea what's waiting for me on the other side of the door. I'm excited and speechless.

I wish you all the very best in 2018. I know it wasn't an easy year for many people. I think 2018 is going to be much better. As my friend and fellow writer, Marie Anne Beswick wrote, "I've been waiting my whole life for 2018."

May you know joy, peace and fulfilment throughout the year.

If you're in the Banderas Bay, Nayarit area Friday, January 5th, come by the VIP Lounge at the Marina Rivera Yacht Club in La Cruz de Huanacaxtle. It's the annual Meet the Author event from 5 to 7pm. Besides myself, authors Susan Appleyard and Wanda St. Hilaire will be there. I would love to see you. What better way to spend the evening than talking shop.

Wednesday, December 6, 2017

It’s time for another group posting of the IWSG: Insecure Writer’s Support Group! Time to release our fears to the world – or offer encouragement to those who are feeling neurotic. If you’d like to join us, click on the tab above and sign up. We post the first Wednesday of every month and encourage everyone to visit at least a dozen new blogs and leave a comment. Your words might be the encouragement someone needs.

Every month, a question is offered that members can answer in their IWSG Day post. These questions may prompt you to share advice, insight, a personal experience or story. Include your answer to the question in your IWSG post or let it inspire your post if you are struggling with something to say. Remember, the question is optional.

December 6 question - As you look back on 2017, with all its successes/failures, if you could backtrack, what would you do differently?

I admitted to a friend a few days ago that over the course of the year I had lost my confidence. So much had happened safety and health-wise that I found myself waiting for the next bomb to drop. This dear friend looked at me and nodded. She said it was natural for me to feel this way. The problems I'd faced had come out of nowhere and continue as such for almost the entire year. One thing happened after another.

She helped me realize that I'm not the only one out there who feels this way. We sit here waiting for the year to end in hopes that all our fears will end with it.

What is confidence? The ability to have faith and to believe everything will be alright. And don't we generally feel that way? Until stuff happens. And more stuff. Life isn't always compliant. Nor should it be. But while we're in the thick of things, it is very nice to have IWSG to go to. Thank you, Alex.

Wednesday, October 4, 2017

It’s time for another group posting of the IWSG: Insecure Writer’s Support Group! Time to release our fears to the world – or offer encouragement to those who are feeling neurotic. If you’d like to join us, click on the tab above and sign up. We post the first Wednesday of every month and encourage everyone to visit at least a dozen new blogs and leave a comment. Your words might be the encouragement someone needs.Be sure to link to IWSG and display the badge in your post.IWSG is the brainchild of our noble Ninja Captain and leader Alex J. Cavanaugh!

Our Twitter handle is @TheIWSG and hashtag is #IWSG

Every month, we announce a question that members can answer in their IWSG post. These questions may prompt you to share advice, insight, a personal experience or story. Include your answer to the question in your IWSG post or let it inspire your post if you are struggling with something to say. Remember, the question is optional.

After 5 months, I'm so glad to be back at IWSG. It's been a whirlwind year. For the last three days I've sat staring at this screen, though, wondering, now that I'm back what I could possible say to encourage anyone. The 90s and first 8 years of the new millennium were challenging, so I assume when life changed for the better at the end of 2008, I had survived because I was meant to help others by sharing what I'd learned. It was the reason I joined IWSG. Not once did I see that life wasn't finished teaching me difficult lessons.

On a positive note: the sense of hopelessness that's hung around my neck all these months is finally gone. What took its place, I've yet to determine.

Question: Have you ever slipped any of your personal information into your characters, either by accident or on purpose?

I've gone to great lengths to never reveal anything personal into my characters. To do so would feel like a betrayal. Betrayal to whom, beats me; thoughts for another post, I suppose. I do know I'm incapable of not influencing my characters. After all, my stories come from me, and I'm a product of my existential judgements. While I purposely avoid using personal data from my life, I did write a Vietnam War thriller after studying for months with a Crew Chief who served on a Huey during the war. He helped me understand exactly what the day in the life of a grunt was like, right down to the rotten crotch, bed bugs and the razor-sharp elephant leaves. I'll never be able to thank him enough for taking the time to help me, a young mother from small town Canada, write such authentic scenes. Little did either of us know that one day, many years later, my youngest son would serve in Afghanistan. I can still see the relief on his face when he understood that I was never going to ask him to explain what his days were like.

FIND ME

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I am Canadian/Métis, the author of suspense novels Dead Witness, Maski: Broken But Not Dead, Break Time, and Matowak. I won the IPPY Silver Medal for Broken But Not Dead in 2012. Born in Portage La Prairie, Manitoba, (April 25, 1953) I am the youngest of three children of Charles (Charlie) Murray Nowell, veteran, farmer and truck driver, and Gabrielle Frances, (nee Desjardins), a member of the wartime singing trio The Desjardins Sisters. When my father was discharged from the Navy, he moved us from Victoria to Haney, (Maple Ridge) BC.. I grew up with horses, cows, pigs and chickens. A regular tomboy. I received a Bachelor Degree in English and Philosophy from Douglas College and attended Simon Fraser University. In 1979, my husband Ralph and I moved our five sons to Prince George, BC.. In 1992 we moved an hour west of the city and built a log/stick house on Cluculz Lake, 36 kms east of Vanderhoof. Twenty-five years later, we sold our home and today spend six months in Bucerias, Nayarat, and six months dividing our time between BC’s interior and Fredericton, New Brunswick.

Sequel to Maski

When Canada's retired Minister of National Defense, Leland Warner, is murdered in his home, the case is handed to Corporal Danny Killian, an aboriginal man tortured by his wife's unsolved murder.

The suspect, 60-year-old Sally Warner, still grieves for the loss of her two sons, dead in a suicide/murder eighteen months earlier. Confused and damaged, she sees in Corporal Killian a friend sympathetic to her grief and suffering and wants more than anything to trust him.

Danny finds himself with a difficult choice—indict his prime suspect, the dead minister's horribly abused wife or find a way to protect her and risk demotion. Or worse, transfer away from the scene of his wife’s murder and the guilt that haunts him...

Prequel to Matowak

Ebook

To the Breaking Point...

When Brendell Meshango resigns from her university professor position and retreats to her isolated cabin to repair her psyche, she is confronted by a masked intruder. His racial comments lead her to believe she is the solitary victim of a hate crime.

However, is all as it appears? After two bizarre days, the intruder mysteriously disappears but continues to play mind games with her. Taught by her mother to distrust the mainstream-based power structures, and with her stalker possibly linked to a high level of government, Brendell conceals the incident from the police. But will her silence keep her safe?

Then her beloved daughter, Zoë, is threatened and Brendell takes matters into her own hands. To save Zoë, Brendell searches for the stalker and confronts not just a depraved madman but her own fears and prejudices.

Rave review

... from the author of the Joanne Kilbourn series.

Joylene Butler’s protagonist, Professor Brendell Meshango, is a complex and uniquely Canadian character. She is a strong woman, but neither her Aboriginal childhood, her adult success as an academic, nor her fierce loyalty to her own child prepare her, or us, for the terror that strikes when she becomes the victim of a, seemingly random home invasion. The action in “Broken But Not Dead” is gripping; the characters are rich and the climax riveting.

-- Gail Bowen

New

Alexander Giston, 64 years old in 1966, invented a machine that broke time and allowed him to return to the past and save his wife and son from the train wreck that took their lives. They agreed to travel by airship instead, and were lost when the airship went down. After a third failed attempt to keep them from dying, Al promised himself he wouldn't again attempt to save his wife and son. Instead, he decided to go to the past to kill steam, the means of their death.

But some who live and prosper because of steam will to do anything to save their way of life, even to kill Al as often as they need to.Buy here

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Dead Witness

Dead Witness, a novel

Valerie McCormick is a wife and mother from small town Canada. While visiting Seattle, she becomes the only witness to the brutal seaside murder of two FBI agents. When she flees to the nearest police station to report the crime, she becomes caught up in a web of international intrigue and danger. Suddenly, she and her family are in the sights of ruthless criminals bent on preventing her from testifying against the murderer. Even with FBI protection, Valerie is not safe. Whisked away from her family and all that is familiar to her, Valerie fights back against the well intentioned FBI to ultimately take control over her life with every ounce of fury a mother can possess.
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